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Can People Sell their Children into Slavery? Cultural Relativism vs. Universality in Islamic Jurisprudence

Can People Sell their Children into Slavery? Cultural Relativism vs. Universality in Islamic Jurisprudence

Questions Raised in South Asia: Selling One’s Children and the Shariah For millennia, one of the ways people entered slavery was as children sold by their families. This seems unthinkable to many today. As the sociologist Georg Simmel (d. 1336/1918) observed, however, our valuation of goods like freedom only makes sense in a context of minimum safety and subsistence. Parents who lacked such basic needs might sell their children if they were threatened, if their family were starving, or if…

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The Blurred Boundaries of Slavery and Freedom in the Early Modern Crimean Khanate

The Blurred Boundaries of Slavery and Freedom in the Early Modern Crimean Khanate

Introduction The Crimean Khanate was a semi-autonomous polity situated in the Crimean Peninsula, the last surviving successor state of the Mongol Golden Horde. It flourished from the mid-15th century to the late 18th century as a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, but occasionally enjoyed brief periods of independence, projecting its power and influence over neighbouring territories. The Crimean Khanate organised slaving expeditions against the non-Muslim populations to the north, leading to the enslavement and sale of thousands of men,…

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From Muslim Slave to Catholic Surgeon: A Case of Manumission in the Galleys of Spain

From Muslim Slave to Catholic Surgeon: A Case of Manumission in the Galleys of Spain

Introduction In the Early Modern period, the Mediterranean was a frontier zone between mutually hostile Christian and Muslim powers. This frontier witnessed trade and diplomatic exchange as well as conflict and violence. In this conflict, capturing and enslaving the “infidel” enemy was regarded as entirely legitimate,[1] and provided the Hispanic Monarchy with the opportunity to replenish its rowing galley benches with newly enslaved enemies. Galley squadrons relied on coerced labour. In the galleys of Spain, in particular, rowing crews were…

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What Can We Learn about Slavery from a Manual for Judges and Notaries?

What Can We Learn about Slavery from a Manual for Judges and Notaries?

Introduction This month’s blog post focuses on the relevance that shurūṭ manuals written for judges and notaries have for understanding practices related to slavery, and legal practices more generally. Shurūṭ works, or “model shurūṭ works,” as Wael Hallaq puts it in his seminal article on the topic, are works that reproduce standardised legal contracts or judicial rulings in a range of domains for easy use by legal professionals. The need for this genre arose partly because persons with inadequate knowledge…

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On the “Guile” of Slaves: Thirteen Recommendations of Samawʾal b. Yaḥyā al-Maghribī (d. 570/1175) on the Purchase of Male and Female Slaves

On the “Guile” of Slaves: Thirteen Recommendations of Samawʾal b. Yaḥyā al-Maghribī (d. 570/1175) on the Purchase of Male and Female Slaves

Introduction There is a large corpus of premodern Arabic literature dealing with sexual matters, from a variety of perspectives.[1] The Nuzhat al-aṣḥāb fī muʿāsharat al-aḥbāb (A Friends’ Jaunt in Coitus Between Lovers, hereafter Nuzhat) of Samawʾal b. Yaḥyā al-Maghribī is an interesting example of such a text. The author, a well-known physician of the 6th/12th century, discusses eroticism with particular attention to its medical aspects. The first part of the text deals extensively with ghilmān (young boys) and jawārī (maidens). Both terms were sometimes used in premodern literature…

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The Sins of the Father: Theodicy, Salvation and the Enslavement of Children in Some Kalām Texts

The Sins of the Father: Theodicy, Salvation and the Enslavement of Children in Some Kalām Texts

Introduction In early kalām (Islamic theology), juristic debates on the lawfulness of killing children feature alongside discussions of children’s salvation in the Hereafter. It is easy to see how the two points are related: should one distinguish between unbelieving adult males and their offspring in the conduct of war, and if so, do the latter share the otherworldly fate of the former? In a word, are children punished—in this world and the next—for the sins of their fathers? In the second/eighth century,…

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The Standard Unified Contract for Migrant Domestic Workers in Lebanon — Recognition of Rights and Responsibilities or Facilitation of ‘Modern Slavery’?

The Standard Unified Contract for Migrant Domestic Workers in Lebanon — Recognition of Rights and Responsibilities or Facilitation of ‘Modern Slavery’?

In 2020, a new Standard Unified Contract for domestic workers was adopted by the Ministry of Labour in Lebanon. The new contract aimed at granting migrant domestic workers a number of rights which had been afforded to other kinds of workers under the Labour Code many years ago, including a 48-hour work week, a weekly rest day, overtime pay, sick pay, annual leave, and the national minimum wage, with some deductions permitted for housing and food.[1] Most importantly, as Human Rights Watch state, “The…

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The Case of Najma Saʿīd Ismāʿīl: A ‘Proof of Ownership’ Document Issued by the Islamic State (2016)

The Case of Najma Saʿīd Ismāʿīl: A ‘Proof of Ownership’ Document Issued by the Islamic State (2016)

Introduction Among scholars working in the field of Slavery Studies and related areas, one of the most pressing questions in recent years concerns the difficulty of labelling the diverse phenomena we see: when is it appropriate to speak of slavery? When do we refer to bondage? What role does labour coercion play? To mention only two important approaches discussed in the last couple of years: is it more useful to focus in our analyses on social relations shaped by ‘strong…

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On Eunuchs: An Italian Medical Doctor’s View (Cairo, 1902)

On Eunuchs: An Italian Medical Doctor’s View (Cairo, 1902)

Introduction The subject of this month’s blog post is not a “typical” source for our project, as it is not properly legal. It is a paper presented by an Italian medical doctor on eunuchs in Cairo in 1902 containing a denunciation of the practice of castration. By featuring sources of this kind on the TraSIS project blog, we aim to highlight the importance of Islamic law beyond the boundaries of Muslim jurists’ discourse. But why would an Italian medical doctor…

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Legal and Theological Dimensions of Slavery in an Early Ibāḍī Text

Legal and Theological Dimensions of Slavery in an Early Ibāḍī Text

Introduction The text translated below, edited by the prolific Abdulrahman al-Salimi, is excerpted from an epistle authored by the Ibāḍī qāḍī Abū ʿAlī Mūsā b. ʿAlī (d. 237/851) on behalf of the Omani Imam al-Muhannā b. Jayfar (r. 226/841-237/851) addressed to Muʿādh b. Ḥarb (d.?).[1] According to al-Salimi, the text “discusses a number of theological and legal questions that were currently preoccupying the people of Oman.”[2] His edition is based on four manuscripts of the text found in various public and private libraries in…

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